Georg Friedrich Meier (philosopher)

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Georg Friedrich Meier , engraving by Gottfried August Gründler (1750)

Georg Friedrich Meier (born March 29, 1718 in Ammendorf , † June 21, 1777 in Giebichenstein ) was a German philosopher .

Live and act

Youth (1718–1735)

His father Gebhard Friedrich Christoph Meier was a village preacher in Ammendorf and Beesen. The mother Dorothea was born Kuskopf. Until 1727 Meier was taught Latin, arithmetic and writing by his parents. However, throughout his youth he remained very susceptible to disease ( epilepsy ). From 1727 Meier went to the orphanage's school. There the hospital preacher Möller took over board and lodging. The stay was interrupted by an illness. From 1729 Meier made a second attempt at the same location.

Meier learned in the house of Christoph Semler (senior deacon of the Ulrichskirche ). Semler was also the father of the quarter, educator and first sponsor of Meier. In addition to spiritual training, he has also devoted himself to mathematics, astronomy, physics and mechanics. Humanistic education fell short in his youth, which is why Meier acquired his knowledge in an autodidactic way. Semler also made it possible for him to attend lectures at Friedrichs University from 1732.

Academic years (1735–1739)

Meier was already registered at the University of Halle in 1730 . From 1735, after leaving school, he began to actually study philosophy and theology. There Meier heard lectures by the Baumgarten brothers ( Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten : logic, metaphysics, natural law and philosophical morality; Sigmund Jacob Baumgarten : theology). The two tree gardens became Meier's greatest patrons and patrons. In addition, the autodidactic acquisition of Christian Wolff's works took place during his studies. Meier received his doctorate in April 1739 as Magister philosophiae.

Magister (1739–1746)

Meier completed his habilitation in September 1739 with the text "De nonnullis abstractis mathematicis". At the end of 1740 A. G. Baumgarten accepted the call to the University of Frankfurt / Oder . For this reason, Meier took over his teaching post in Halle (Saale) . He experienced a large number of visitors to his lectures (up to 300 listeners). This is all the more remarkable since Christian Wolff, when he was recalled to Halle in 1740, also took over all parts of philosophy, mathematics, natural and international law. Wolff was evidently not very happy about Meier's success: "that the fine-minded people in philosophy will spoil everything".

Extraordinary (1746–1748)

In November, not least due to the intervention of S. J. Baumgarten, Georg Friedrich Meier is appointed associate professor. In general, his philosophy stayed largely within the conceptual framework of Christian Wolff's philosophy, but continued to develop this framework at a number of points through modernizing revisions and additions, especially in questions of the newly emerging aesthetics . A little later, in 1748, Meier turned down a call to Göttingen and an appointment by the Duke of Braunschweig.

Full Professor (1748–1777)

In December 1748 Meier was appointed full professor. He continued his extensive teaching activities in all disciplines of philosophy and aesthetics until 1776. One sign of his ascent is u. a. rapid acceptance into various learned societies.

As a successor to Meier's chair of philosophy at the University of Halle , Immanuel Kant was appointed to Königsberg . He did not follow him, however, as he was working on his major philosophical work, which required his full attention. From 1778 Johann August Eberhard took over the orphaned chair. He was a former student of Meier and later a Kant critic.

family

Georg Friedrich Meier married the pastor's daughter Johanna Concordia Hermann on June 3, 1750 . In the winter of 1776 he suffered a serious illness. Meier died on June 21, 1777.

Work and effect

Today, Meier's best-known work is probably his founding of all fine arts and sciences , which appeared in Halle from 1748–1750 (3 vols.). This work presents in German the essential thoughts of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgartens Aesthetica , which appeared a little later in Latin (2 vols., Frankfurt / Oder 1750 and 1758). Meier was known with Baumgarten's ideas of aesthetics as a new science of sensual knowledge through Baumgarten's dissertation ( Meditationes Philosophicae de Nonnullis ad Poema Pertinentibus , Halle 1735), his lectures and personal communications. Meier's work, which expressly recognizes Baumgarten's predecessor, made a decisive contribution to the popularization and dissemination of Baumgarten's ideas, partly because it was written in German and not in Latin. It therefore also played a part in the emergence of an aesthetic fashion and the cult of genius of the 18th century, above all by polemically highlighting Baumgarten's idea of ​​a new, aesthetic type of person, the felix aestheticus , against the type portrayed as "dark" and "school-savvy" of "logicus".

Meier's attempt at a general art of interpretation was important for the history of hermeneutics (Halle 1757, reissued by Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1996).

Other important works by Meier, which differ from Christian Wolff's role model, primarily through greater attention to psychological issues, the limits of human knowledge and skepticism about the possibility of purely rational proofs of God, are: Thoughts on Religion (Hall 1749), Theory of Reason (Hall 1752 ), Proof of the predetermined agreement (Halle, 1752), philosophical moral theory (5 vols. Halle 1753–1761), metaphysics (4 vols. Halle 1755–1759), reflections on the limits of human knowledge (Halle 1775), contributions to the Doctrine of the prejudices of the human race / Contributi alla dottrina dei pregiudizi del genere umano. Edited by Heinrich P. Delfosse, Norbert Hinske and Paola Rumore. Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2006.

Known students

literature

  • Ernst Bergmann (philosopher) : The foundation of the German aesthetic by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten and Georg Friedrich Meier . Leipzig 1911.
  • Franz Muncker :  Meier, Georg Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, pp. 193-197.
  • Riccardo Pozzo: Georg Friedrich Meier's "Doctrine of Reason": a historical-systematic investigation . Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2000, ISBN 3-7728-2023-9 .
  • Günter Schenk: Life and work of the Halle enlightener Georg Friedrich Meier . Hallescher Verlag , Halle / Saale 1994, ISBN 3-929887-01-0 .
  • Klaus-Werner Segreff:  Meier, Georg Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , pp. 649-651 ( digitized version ).
  • Frank Grunert, Gideon Stiening (ed.): Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–1777). Philosophy as "true world wisdom". Series Werkprofile Vol. 7, philosophers and writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-040179-0 .
  • Evelyn Dueck: "[...] I heard a strong confused hum." Georg Friedrich Meier's reflections on the language of ants in the attempt to build a new teaching building for the souls of animals (1749) . In: Tierstudien, vol. 8, 2019, issue 15.

Web links

Wikisource: Georg Friedrich Meier  - Sources and full texts
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personal data
SURNAME Meier, Georg Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1718
PLACE OF BIRTH Ammendorf
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1777
Place of death Giebichenstein